


Flying

by the_tired_fangirl



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25036420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_tired_fangirl/pseuds/the_tired_fangirl
Summary: Lucy Gray Baird, and what happens after
Relationships: Lucy Gray Baird/Corliolanus Snow
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	Flying

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a haze after finishing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so it probably isn't the most realistic ending, but oh well.

Lucy Gray Baird staggered through the woods, hand clutched to her side. Blood spilled through her clenched fingers, blending in with her rainbow dress. Her breath was short, but it was masked by the tune of the mockingjays around her, carrying out her final song. 

“Lucy Gray!” Coriolanus’s voice interrupted the song of the mockingjays, cutting through the trees and piercing her straight through the heart. At the sound of his voice, Lucy Gray picked up her pace, dragging herself further and further away from Coriolanus. Desperate, her eyes raked over her surroundings. The gunshot wound wasn’t fatal, but it was enough to prevent her from climbing a tree or running away quickly. 

She spotted a cluster of blackberry bushes nearby and started working her way towards the center. There she hunkered down, curled into herself, listening as Coriolanus’s shouts for her stopped and the last mockingjays abandoned her song. She stayed in the blackberry bushes for the length of the night, too scared to move. Who knew if Coriolanus was sending peacekeepers out to the woods to find her? To send her to the hanging tree? Like Lil and like . . . like Sejanus. That was the third person he killed. Coriolanus Snow, ever loyal to the capitol, killed his best friend for conspiring with the rebels. 

And he had tried to kill her too. 

But she was a victor, and no one became a victor out of luck. It would take a lot more than a stolen gun and a tramp through the woods to kill her, she would be sure of that. 

By the next morning, she started to realize that no one would be coming for her. Did Coriolanus think she was dead? She had yelled when the bullet grazed her side, but was that enough for him to pronounce her dead so easily? 

She had to remind herself that it was better that way, better if he thought she was dead. He had tried to kill her after all. 

She made her way back to the cabin by the lake once she realized Coriolanus would no longer be there, lurking, ready to shoot her down. The cabin was almost empty, the guns missing. Of course. He had to get rid of the evidence. So that he could go back to lying and scheming for the capital, scotch free. The only one to remember the people he murdered would be her. And what would she do about it? District 12 already hated her. She had never had a home there. 

Lucy Gray winced as she started tending to her wound, bringing her back to reality. The knife provided handy for cutting scraps from her dress to use as bandages. The gunshot wound wasn’t bad, but she had lost a lot of blood running in the woods. 

Her real concern was where to go from here. She couldn’t go back to 12, not with whatever lies Coriolanus had inevitably spread about her and the peacekeepers lurking outside their house at all hours of the day. And if she couldn’t go back to 12, the only place left to go was north. 

To freedom.

She wished she could have given the rest of the Covey a proper goodbye, but she was sure they’d understand. 

So Lucy Gray gathered up the rest of the supplies in the cabin, picked some katniss root, and bade the lake goodbye. There were plenty of other lakes in the world, but she would miss the times she spent there with her family. 

Briefly, she wondered if things could have been different. If Panem and the Capitol and the Districts had never existed. If in this other life, she and Coriolanus would work out, or if they would have never met. 

Those thoughts were tabled as she focused on surviving in the wilderness. Her wound made hunting and gathering difficult, and freshwater was hard to come by. 

But most of all, she was lonely. Some nights, when she trying to fall asleep, she felt like she was in the arena again, hunkered down in the stands waiting to die. And when she could sleep, her mind was filled with nightmares. The tributes that had died because of her, all the moments she thought she was going to die in the games. The nightmares always ended with Coriolanus, hunting her down. 

When she woke up screaming, she had to remind herself that she was safe now. Well, relatively safe. But whatever dangers she could face in the forest was nothing compared to the control the Capitol had over her. 

After weeks of traveling, she reached civilization. A group of people living in an abandoned city up north. They told her stories of the past, of countries called Canada and America, and in return, she sang for them. They didn’t ask her what happened to her to lead her to them, only treated her gunshot wound and gave her an old guitar to use. 

Her life was peaceful in their little society. But she longed for more. Adventure, freedom, whatever you call it. She wanted to fly. 

So when a group of people asked her about a voyage to a forgotten civilization across the sea, she takes her guitar and boards the boat without a second thought. 

There, she felt alive for the first time since the reaping. She sang at night, her voice mixing with the sound of the waves against the ship. She loved the way the sky looks at night away from civilization. She loved the wind in her hair and the smell of saltwater. But most of all she loved the feeling of freedom. 

She’d spent most of her life trapped. Trapped in the district. Trapped in the arena. Trapped in the thing Coriolanus Snow called love. But now she was free, free to do whatever she wanted. 

And there, on the open ocean, Lucy Gray Baird felt like she could fly. 


End file.
